So apparently jackhammers aren’t the entertaining tools popular media has made them out to be.
Ugh. This sure brings back memories, and not the good kind. This was step one of “remodeling” our old pool, which had become the bane of my existence. The old plaster was flaking away in great chunks and the pool had become home to a mutant strain of black algae that mocked my feeble efforts to eliminate it.
The guy at the store told me to jackhammer 4-6 holes in the bottom so rain could drain away. That doesn’t sound too bad, I thought. I’ll start with the easy one by the drain.
Boy was I completely clueless.
Apparently in the 1970s they built pools to withstand a direct nuclear strike. The damned concrete was like 18 inches thick! With freaking rebar crisscrossing every 8 inches or so! It was like breaking into Ft Knox, but with no happy surprise on the other side or men with guns to shoot you down and end the pain.
I cashed in the first jackhammer after an hour or so and got their biggest one. It still took all bloody day. And that was for one hole.
And that was when I decided this old pool was only going to have one hole in the bottom. This is Tucson, after all, where rain is both scarce and infrequent.
Anyway, the whole thing turned out well in the end as you can see from the following picture. It only took about 175 cubic yards of soil that all had to be wheelbarrowed (is that a verb? Well, it is now.) in by hand because no machinery will make it into the back yard.
The new pool is 1/10th the size, fiberglass, and nary a sign of black algae!
The new pool is 1/10th the size, fiberglass, and nary a sign of black algae!
